The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the German media are now in full panic mode. They can no longer get their stories straight.Desperate to stem the flood of doubt now sweeping Germany, as the country is gripped by its harshest December in 100 years, including record snowfalls in Potsdam, the hyper-alarmist PIK and the German media are now throwing all they’ve got to explain away the embarrassing cold.

For years they preached endlessly that Germany would be experiencing balmy, southern European-type winters. Snow indeed had been relegated to the history books. The tables have since turned.

Everybody had predicted a brutal winter

Back in late summer and fall, meteorologists like Piers Corbyn, Joe Bastardi, and other German private forecasters, were all predicting cold winters ahead. Even Russian and Polish scientists had forecast the possibility of the harshest winter in a 1000 years. But the PIK and Met Office climatologists scoffed. The Met Office in England even went so far as to forecast a mild and wet winter, again.

So far, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom and Germany have experienced one of the worst Decembers on record, if not the worst.

PIK suddenly sees the writing on the wall

By early November even the climate scientists at the dogmatic PIK eventually recognized the writing on the wall, and so scrambled to fabricate a cartoonish “new study”, authored by PIK scientist Vladimir Petuchov, that suddenly predicted cold winters would be likely for Europe, and claimed it was consistent with global warming. Their models had just uncovered it.

The media blitz – conflicting stories

The heavy snows and extreme cold hit as expected. The public was caught off guard and demanded an explanation. And so the propaganda machinery switched into high gear. FOCUS online, two days ago on Tuesday, had the title Colder Winters Because of Global Warming. Der Spiegel and other major news outlets, along with radio and TV, all joined in spreading the PIK propaganda – all reporting this sudden new discovery by PIK.

Here Focus wrote how a PIK computer model shows how the disappearance of sea ice in the Barents and Kara Seas influences the climate in northern continental regions. Less sea ice in these seas leads to release of energy into the atmosphere.

As a result, large-scale changes in air currents could occur so that polar winds make their way to Europe and North Asia, whereby the probability of cold winters triples.”

Emphasis added. They (PIK) aren’t sure amd are simply floating this out. The study’s lead author Vladimir Petuchov then adds a line, which I think will become infamous down the road:

Hard winters do not refute global warming, instead they more so confirm it.”

So, according to their latest climate models, global warming will lead to colder European winters. The probability of the such is 3 times higher. Now enters Stefan Rahmstorf.

No no…stop! Warming leads to warmer colder winters!

Meanwhile Stefan Rahmstorf is watching the back door. No matter what happens, they’ll all be able to say “We were right”. Also on Tuesday, the online Die Welt quotes Rahmstorf, also from the PIK, in an article titled: Hard Winter Not a Sign of Climate Change. (Petuchov to the contrary said that it was).

We will certainly have to anticipate milder winters rather than cold ones.”

Die Welt then adds:

PIK scientist Prof. Stephan Rahmstorf also points out that the “cold“ winters have gotten warmer.”

Stop right there. These guys can’t even get their stories straight! One PIK scientist says we’ll get warmer winters, while the other one says we’ll get colder ones. Well, which is it? Rahmstorf seems to be saying we’ll get colder winters that will be warmer. Oh, now I get it…global warming will now lead to warmer colder winters!

It was all recently discovered by their climate models

Dr. Peter Werner, also of the PIK, said on NDR Radio (also on Tuesday) that their climate models had just recently uncovered the Barents and Kara Sea phenomena, claiming it’s all consistent with man-made climate change.

Tuesday was a busy press release day for the alarmists in Potsdam. It also appears to have been a very chaotic one too.

Conclusion

So what can we conclude from all this? No matter what the climate does, they will be able to say their models predicted it. Falsification is impossible. Jared Olar of Echo-Pilot.com here says it best:

The natural sciences have terms for that kind of hypothesis. ‘Unfalsifiable’ is one of them. ‘Unscientific’ is another. An idea may be true, but if it is incapable of being ‘falsified’ or proven wrong, then whatever else that idea is, it certainly isn’t science.”

It is not only unfalsifiable; it also automatically invalidates itself as a predictive tool. Politicians (after calling that charlatan science into being) now find themselves without any useful advice from the charlatans.

Which will automatically call further funding into question. I see a big culling real soon now…

It is more than unfalsifiable. Because the theory implies a paradox, by reductio ad absurdum it is false. The AGW people have proven the falsity of their own theory for which we should thank them cordially.

You really couldn’t make it up, however they do, it is said all the dummies (thicko civil servants) end up in DEFRA, it is true reading that…………..’Horizon scanning report’ – should have read: ‘navel gazing report’!

The Met office in Britain has tried a number of tacks, one was: it is only Britain suffering!
Two, it is warming in Greenland (NAO etc) and this cold weather confirms “wot we thought”.

Yeah right, I know one thing: Rahmstorf has lost the plot, so too, the Met office!

“The Met office in Britain has tried a number of tacks, one was: it is only Britain suffering!”

Definitely bollocks. Here in Germany, there’s a lot of criticism of the Deutsche Bahn, the railway operator (quasi-national, wholly owned by the state), for not being able to cope with the weather. The locos and wagons are 15% cheaper than the ones used in Scandinavia and not capable of working properly in this weather. It’s not like mankind lost the ability; it’s cost-cutting measures and preparing for milder winters that is to blame.

The claim by some “scientists” that this cold is just a local Europe/England thing —
what about the northern Virginia area in the US (including DC and quite a ways south) where the first couple of weeks of December (and continuing) have been 7 (Seven) degrees below average. !!

Concerning Fasteddie’s: comment: The driver of all this bad, whorish science is systemic politization that goes beyond government and university bureaucrats, and now profoundly directly affects scientists, through the “carrot” of government money. It is past time to clean house in a big way and get government out of science.

Who is interested in the AGW whitewash? Ok, now that you think you got it, please give us some predictions for the FUTURE!

Let’s have a competition. Team “AGW” and team “Piers Corbyn”. The team that give the best predictions during next year gets all the research funding. Why put money on losers? Who thinks team AGW are in?

The most important climate factor that determines the severity of the European winters is the Arctic Oscillation. Looking back at the last cold winter period for Europe , namely 1962-1987 , this fact becomes more apparent . We seem to be heading for another 1-3 decades of more negative AO winters like we had in the 1960’s to 1980’s . We just came from a decade where we had only say 4 negative AO winters but can now expect as many as 6- 10 negative AO winters . The brief analysis shows this in more detail .
Most significant climate factors.
Last cool period in Europe and UK [winters only] 1962-1987
Total number of winters 26
Number of winters the TEMPERATURES was below normal [base line 1961-1990]
UK CENTRAL ENGLAND 13 winters [50%] AO NEGATIVE 11YEARS [OR 85%]
EUROPE LAND ONLY 15 winters! 58%] AO NEGATIVE 14YEARS
EUROPE LAND AND SEA 17 winters [65%] AO NEGATIVE 16 YEARS
Number of winters where AMO is negative 22 or 84%
Number of winters AO is negative 21 or 80% dec/jan/feb]
Number of winters where PDO is negative 15 or 58 %
Number of winters NAO is negative 13 or 50 %
ENSO YEARS NEUTRAL 8 YEARS [30 %], LA NINA 9YEARS [35%], EL NINO 9YEARS [35%]

COMMENTS
Clearly the presence of negative AO was the most frequently occurring climate factor for the cold winters
A negative AMO was also present very frequently , but in the period 1950-1959 which also was somewhat colder , negative AO was present 60% of the time but AMO was positive all the time . So the presence of the negative AO seems to be the dominant source of the cooling.

Yes the AO does fluctuate.
I track the winter AO [ average of DEC/JAN/FEB combined ]. The winter AO in winter of 2009/2010 was -3.442, the lowest since 1950. The 2010/2011 winter AO could be equally low . Certainly December’s was close to -4 to -5 and posibly a new low. I have found that if the winter anomaly is very low , often cooler weather extends right to spring and even later. SOI readings continue to be around +20 since July 2010 to the end of December and this can often predict cooler global weather 5- 7 months later. So most signs to me predict the cool weather to continue into the first part of 2011 after a brief warming early in January?